


Therapy Jack

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst and Humor, Collegestuck, Gen, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, unrequited?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the kids take some time off for a nostalgic sleepover, Dave realizes that growing up forces people apart.</p><p>Going home doesn't always bring them together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapy Jack

A single off-colored light bulb placed precariously close to Dave's unshielded eyes kept the room from being completely black. Somehow, he'd managed to conk out head-to-desktop, and he felt the hard wood of Rose's furniture pressing into his forehead. Hard, _sticky_ wood; the kind that wasn't in .avi format and cautiously saved onto his Macbook's hard drive (password-protected with "homeskrillex"), but rather the sort of wood that Flighty Broad would pull a bitch fit about in the morning (after realizing it was covered in coagulated Jack Daniel's). He'd never been in her house, after all, and it was filled with a lot of swanky shit that he and his bro never really cared for; armoires and hutches and other dumb european-sounding things were in excess, and he really wasn't surprised. After all, back in college her dorm was always fit for someone vicariously reliving Marie Antoinette's lame fancy lifestyle, and though Rose had stated on occasion that it was to "keep up appearances" in case of a surprise visit from Mommy Dearest, Dave was starting to suspect she really liked that kind of shit. Unfortunately for all of them, "that kind of shit" was currently trashed; her desk was still dripping with alcoholic Pepsi puddles and her floor was home to empty styrofoam food containers that they'd torn through some six hours earlier. 

He winced against the light. What time was it? The last thing he remembered before passing out was taking a much-needed fourth piss in the conjoined bathroom, and that was around 3am. He repositioned himself to steal a glance at her alarm clock (analog— _of course_ ). The big hand was pointing to the five, which meant he'd really only been napping for an hour or two. A momentary sweep of the bedroom, however, told him he was the only one who wasn't completely comatose: Jade was taking up most of the bed with her still-unshaven legs sticking out of the comforter, Rose was balled up next to her but facing the wall with _maybe_ six inches of breathing room, and John was back-to-floor with his hands folded neatly over his chest and his knees bent skyward. Clearly they'd all been piss drunk enough to position themselves like that, and Dave was positive that at the very least they'd sleep past noon. Not that he had a problem with that, because that was regular protocol in the Strider Family Fort on hangover days, but he wasn't really down for sticking around to face John awake.

Man.

John.

He pushed himself up completely, letting his spine re-align with the back of the desk chair. His mind was starting to do the stupid thing where it _remembered_ stuff, and a series of recollections from last night (or this-night, or whatever you were supposed to call it when you partied 'til dawn) started high-stepping their way back into his brain like a goddamn German army. Four seconds later and he was thinking about watching The Wicker Man, which came with a commentary from Egbert about Remake vs. Original in a too-enthusiastic tone of voice. Six seconds later and he remembered awkward moments where he _almost_ felt confident enough to reach for the popcorn in synchronized intervals, only to duck out and keep his hand safe and close and unbrushed by Johnny Boy's _oh-so-sensitive_ skin. Nine seconds later and he was questioning why he still knew that about John's dumb epidermis. Dude hadn't had an outbreak since middle school. 

Jade had been the one to suggest it. They hadn't all hung out together since Spring, when Rose announced her transfer was granted and she'd be staying out by Dave for the next few semesters. He'd ventured far from home, not because he didn't like the sweltering Tejas heat or coupling up with Bro around the house, but because he really wanted to try something new. He had a hard time getting back into the swing of things after, well, everything that'd happened when they were thirteen, and he never really got back on beat until he decided the West coast was a neat place to be. It was warm enough to keep him from complaining and close enough to John to keep him occupied— not that it was a determining factor at all back then, really, but it was always a nice plus knowing John was only five hours out of the way instead of fifty. With Rose tacked on as an afterthought, it was almost homey.

With Jade visiting, and Rose and John welcoming her with a running start, it was almost like _home_. 

The four of them spent the next couple of years managing school and work and vacations like that; John would road trip it down for the weekend and he and Dave would waste it all on shitty PS1 games and cheap Smirnoff fruit coolers (because, truth be told, they both kind of hated beer), and Jade would occasionally use her Frequent Flier Miles to hitch over to the mainland from Hawaii State U. Rose worked a lot, and somehow managed to balance a double-major on top of it all, so coming home to a full house and an empty refrigerator became the norm. Dave almost felt guilty for _like five and half seconds_ because _eff that Rose you can pick up a Crunchwrap Supreme on the way home._ And honestly, the moments in which she'd walk through the door tired as fuck with an apartment full of hardly-matured kids and reheated leftovers were some of Dave's favorites. The displeasure that spread across her face and the passive-aggresive remarks she'd shoot his way really meant a lot to him— no matter how upset she got, or how pissed any of them could possibly be at one another, they'd never actually _leave_. The offense that Jade took to, well, _most things_ , and the rare moments when John lost his shit? Dave always got this weird sort of satisfaction over the fact that they'd always be waiting for him after the dust settled. That in this family, no man was left behind.

That one took him a long time to learn.

That one took him a long time to _accept._

__

So now, with the four of them sprawled out haphazardly across Rose's childhood bedroom, simultaneously taking in the New York scenery for the first time ever in a last-minute holiday vacation, Dave was happy. He had everything he'd ever wanted and more, and nothing to tell him otherwise that he should be upset or uncomfortable or unwilling to enjoy the rest of December with his best friends in the world. 

He ran a hand through his bangs. 

_Dear Jesus in holy Mormon heaven: fuck me in the ass._

__

He let his head drop into his palm, shielding himself from the bright yellow glow that insisted on reminding him of his whereabouts. He could always switch off the dumb lamp and let the rest of the room sleep in peace. The couch was always an option, but the fear of facing Roxy Lalonde's morning menopause was enough to keep him upstairs. Instead, he let himself slide out of the desk chair and onto the carpeted floor, being careful to evade any globs of teriyaki sauce that somehow landed next to his shoes. Frankly, he didn't care if he woke up with stained Chucks—he didn't care about a lot of things when his head was still fuzzy and the ceiling was still rotating in his vision. He only worried about landing a precise distance away from John, enough to keep him from drunkenly latching onto his best friend in the middle of the night. Yeah, it'd been a thing that happened before. Many "slumber parties" (as Dave ordained them) had resulted in awkward fumbles through No-Man's-Land, with John waking up to a hand in his pocket and a mouth pressed against his ear mumbling comatose confessions he'd promised Dave he'd take to his grave. Dave didn't need that to be a recurring scene, particularly because he was running out of confessions.

He'd told John he had a Thingy for him when they were twenty. John didn't really know what a Thingy was, at least not until the point was communicated with a bit of nervousness and a lot of saliva. In retrospect, it was nice of John not to punch him in the face, and he actually kissed back a little. Of course, it wasn't anything backed by sentiment or reciprocated feelings; neither of them had really had any action in months, and John was hormonal enough as it was. Dave knew that, but he still had a dumb sort of hope that it meant Egbert wasn't entirely straight as a stripper pole. He still had a lot of dumb hopes. 

But when he _had_ him, guard down and breath hitched and lips moving _ever-so-slightly_ to test the waters of curiosity (with Dave as his Just-As-Heterosexual-As-You! river guide), it didn't feel real at all. It was if none of it had actually happened— neither of them ever brought it up again, and neither of them held it against each other. It would've been easy to have John shit all over his feelings and just cut the goddamn cord, but _no_ , Dave was left hanging for the next two years wondering if he'd managed to sufficiently creep his buddy out. He couldn't really tell, not when he only saw John once every six weeks or so, and even then, their time was allocated toward lunches with Rose and movie nights devoid of deep conversation. 

He let out a sigh. This was stupid. He hated counting the inches between his neck and John's. He hated listening for the rhythm in which John breathed, in and out, long and deep and windy and anything but the shallow pace Dave kept. He hated the crushing fear of waking up next to him and facing the glasses-less brow of the boy he'd wanted since the day he'd turned eighteen-- facing _everything_ he'd ever wanted, a single cocktease of a centimeter away, but a million miles from achieving it. 

He was terrified of it even being a possibility. 

And despite it all, he knew that there was no way he could shake that fear. John wasn't going anywhere, and unless Dave decided to hitch it back home for a while, neither was he. It was an ever-present dilemma that he faced daily, a "first-world problem" (as he so aptly named it) that wasn't deserving of any recognition whatsoever. He had film to develop and mixes to bounce and a ridiculously small window of time to dedicate to teenage crushes, and it was so IRRELEVANT TO ANYONE'S INTERESTS that it didn't even deserve a CAPITALIZATION in the SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER. No, it was an utter waste of time to pursue John in any shape or form, and Dave was—

Dave was—

What.

Dave was suddenly being nudged.

"Dave."

He promptly shut his eyes and deadened his limbs.

"Dave. You awake?"

He panicked, suddenly upset about the fact that John had been conscious for a lot longer than he'd realized. Hadn't his bro taught him better than that?

John nudged him again, and he didn't move an inch. 

"Dude. Come on. Stop pretending," John groaned, making enough noise to suggest he'd rolled over to face him. 

Dave almost didn't respond out of spite (because _no fuck you Egbert, I could be dead, 'snot your decision if I'm pretending or not_ ), but he let his eyes crack open in the end anyway. "What. I was nearly asleep. Way to go." 

John rolled his eyes. "Bullshit. You were totally awake."

"How do you know? I was right up there with Ms. October and your dad in an REM menage a trois for a sec there."

"Okay, for one, gross," he whispered, eyeing the bed and its unconscious inhabitants. "But no, you fetal-position when you're out, you know that? And you do some stupid humming thing too," he said matter-of-factly, like he'd one-upped Dave or something. 'Tchyeah right. 

"Fine, so what, I might've been awake. Whatcha need?" he asked, rolling over to face John with the best nonchalance he could manage while still buzzed. 

John snorted. "I'm kinda hungry. Wanna go look for food with me?"

"Jesus, man, we went through like fourteen things of fried rice earlier, how are you still hungry?"

" _You_ went through 'like fourteen things'. I only had those egg rolls."

Dave shrugged, his shoulders scooting against the carpet. "Eat more will you? How the hell aren't you _dead_ right now after eight shots." He felt a twinge of jealousy at the fact that John'd been able to hold his liquor this well so far. Had it been Dave going in with an empty stomach, Rose's toilet would've been massacred with upchuck by now. And with John catching him mid-contemplative freakout, he sure still _felt_ like puking. But no. He had this. He was fine.

"Dunno. Takes a lot to kill me off I guess," he said, his eyebrows raised. "How about you, is everything okay? Mister 'REM menage a trois'."

"Yeah. All cool in drunken dreamsville over here."

John flicked Dave in the arm, and he recoiled like it was a raging bullet. _Cool._  

"Come on. You've been moving around for like twenty minutes. What's up?"

Dave groaned a little and buried the side of his face against the flooring. "Don't worry about it."

"Dave."

"John."

" _Dave_."

" _Rocky,_ " he spat. "Seriously John, I just relocated to get some sleep in. No big."

John looked at him with a skeptical expression before offering something like a smile. "You're so transparent, man."

"Fine. Go ahead and tell me what I'm so horribly torn apart over. Read me like one of your shitty homosexual screen actors."

John rolled onto his stomach and propped his head up on his forearms. "I don't think you're _torn apart_ or anything. I just feel like you've had your guard up for some reason." He traced a circle around a discarded piece of orange chicken some ten inches in front of him. "I mean, I'm taking off tomorrow and I don't want to regret anything. If you're upset and all."

Dave stared at the ceiling. He hated having John as a friend sometimes. He was too freakin' _good_ at it. "I'm not upset. Just sort of thinking too much I guess."

"Didn't know you did that."

"Shut up," Dave said, shoving at him. "You'd benefit from trying it before you speak, you know that? Only open your mouth at the right time for the right people. That's a goddamn virtue."

"Only open my mouth—"

"Yes, Egbert, that was an innuendo."

He flicked at Dave again, and smirked when Dave slapped a hand over the spot almost immediately. "Will you _stop_ that?" 

"Probably not," John answered. "At least not until you stop being dumb and relax already."

Dave exhaled sharply. "Fine. Yeah. I'm cool. I'm just a little sloshed, that's all." He was intent on keeping his line of sight focused on Rose's stucco-free ceiling, making out the faint shape of a cobweb in the corner that she probably kept around as "natural decor", but John's silhouette got in the way as he sat up next to him. 

"Yeah. Me too. I think I need some water, at the very least," he said, running a hand against the back of his neck. "You want anything from downstairs? It'll probably help you sleep for real." 

 _Trust me, John, it won't_. "Nah, I think I'm good for now. It's too late to prevent a headache in the morning by now anyway." 

John watched him for a moment before shaking his head. "You're so hardcore, man." 

"I know."

John positioned himself to get up, and had a knee propped before pausing to look down at Dave again. "You know, I really mean it. I don't want to leave tomorrow and not know what's been eating at you all night. I'm kinda worried that it'll never come up again, knowing you." 

Dave stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "You're one to talk." 

"What's that supposed to mean."

Dave's inner monologue droned at him while he spoke. "There's just a lot of shit you never bring up once its seemingly dead and buried, that's all. It's probably for the best."

"No," John said, his hand still propped against his knee. "How is that a good thing?"

"Trust me, it is."

" _Dave_." 

"I'm not holding a goddamn seance for conversational subjects of yore, 'kay? No."

"Dave, if you don't tell me what you're going on about, I'm going to tear open a packet of soy sauce over your face."

"John, no—"

"Right on top and let it drip like a faucet—"

"Dude."

"—Come on, I don't get what the big deal is—"

"Shut _up,_ " Dave said, propping himself up. "If you needed to know, I would've told you already, okay? Jesus _Christ._ " He felt his elbows digging into the flooring, but he didn't want to move. Not with John _staring_ at him like that. 

A moment passed before John said anything. He was watching Dave with some dumb unreadable expression— it wasn't fair. Dave needed glasses for that sort of thing, but John already had a natural shield of his own. It almost made him kind of jealous.

"This is about what happened in college, isn't it?" John finally said, quiet enough that Dave only caught every other word. "I mean . . . like two years ago. That thing."

Dave nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh."

"I mean . . . I've been fine about it and all for a while, but now that Rose is graduating in three months and you're probably going to get a job or whatever, it just _weirds me out—_  and being here with all of you like we're fucking fifteen again just makes it seem like," Dave trailed, letting his hands fall to his sides in exasperation.

"Like?" John asked.

"Like this is permanent, and you're never going to go away." 

Dave watched for any sign of how badly he'd just messed things up, and promptly felt like making his way to the bathroom was a good idea, until John finally spoke up again.

"I don't plan on leaving you behind, if that's what you mean."

"That's what sucks," Dave said quietly.

John gave him this shitty sort of sympathetic look. "Why are you always so morose about stuff like this?"

Dave sat up, meeting his eye level. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because it _hurts_? Try lusting after your best friend's Hickory Farms winter kielbasa for a few years and then we'll talk about being _morose_." 

"You're blowing this out of proportion." 

"How can you say something like that?" Dave asked. "You go around like its no big deal all hunky-dory GOLLY-GEE _willikers_ and you're _oblivious_ , John. Completely _oblivious—_ "

"—Dave, keep it down, they're still asleep—"

"—Like I give a fuck? Rose already knows all of this anyway, and—"

John slapped a hand over his mouth and leaned in close. "Stop. Just stop. Jeez, Dave, this is why I never brought this up with you! You always make it so complicated."

Dave spoke when John moved his palm away. "Like it's _not?"_

__

John smiled quixotically in his face, which for once really set him off. Was he mocking him? What was his _problem_? 

"No, it's not."

Dave's mind threatened to go blank as John closed the gap between them and innocently pressed his mouth to Dave's, a small and nearly unnoticeable brush that clung to his lips for _just_ a moment too long to be anything platonic. John pulled away first, but shook his head with the same faint smile that never left his face in the first place. 

"See? Simple."

Dave didn't move. 

"You okay?" John asked after a second.

"The fuck, man."

John laughed under his breath. "Yeah, you're okay."

"The _fuck,_ man." 

Dave watched as John rose to his feet, clinging onto the nightstand next to him for balance. A thousand things raced through his mind, none of them particularly coherent, until he choked out a quick sentence before John left the room. 

"What are you doing?"

John looked at him, his hand on the doorknob, before turning his attention to preventing a creak upon its unlatching. "Getting you some water." 

And with that, John left the room and silently shut the door in the same "simple" manner that he carried out everything with. Dave wondered how he managed to avoid making any noise at all, when the wood and hinges insisted on resisting Dave's ninja prowess whenever he moved the door even an inch in either direction.

He sat, bathed in off-colored lamplight in a stagnant room filled with stale air and filmed-over Chinese sauces, and wondered how (after years of worry and nausea and self-deprecating soliloquy) he managed to avoid the simplest solution to all of his problems. 

Dave turned to his side and vomited onto Rose's shoes. 


End file.
